Peter Greste faces living in squalid, overcrowded Egyptian prison for 15 years

IT’S a nightmare of filth, violence and starvation. This is the overcrowded hell Australian journalist Peter Greste faces living in for the next 15 years.

Sarah Millar

News Corp Australia NetworkJune 23, 20144:49pm

IT’S been described as a nightmare, where up to 85 people can be crammed into tiny cells for days on end with no relief. This is the hell that Peter Greste faces living in for the next 15 years.

The award-winning Australian journalist has already spent six months in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison while on trial, accused of spreading false news and supporting former prime minister Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

If convicted he faces up to 15 years inside an overcrowded cell in squalid conditions.

Trying conditions ... Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed appear in a defendant's cage along with several other accused during their trial on terror charges in Cairo. Picture: Hamada ElrasamSource:AP

Amnesty International, who have been monitoring the Australian’s trial, said reports out of Egypt painted a grim picture of the prison system.

“Being in Tora prison would not be a fun experience,” Middle East crisis campaigner Michael Hayworth told News Corp.

“At best it is described as harsh and in some cases squalid. They’re older facilities, opened a number of decades ago.

“Overcrowding is an issue, conditions would be described as quite poor.”

Filthy conditions ... the kitchen and bathroom in an Egyptian prison cell. Picture: The TelegraphSource:Supplied

He said Greste was also being held in the same prison as some of the most radical members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including their spiritual leader Mohamed Badei.

“Looking down the barrel of 15 years in Tora prison would have a huge impact. How that plays out is yet to be seen, but depression and anxiety are possibilities.”

“It would be starting to take a toll absolutely.”

Footage secretly filmed inside an Egyptian prison earlier this year showed cramped conditions with three men forced to sleep in a cell measuring no more than 2m long and 1.5m wide.

Designed for solitary confinement, the cells in the maximum security prison are so small that personal belongings are nailed to the walls or hung on ropes.

The bathroom facilities consist of a hole in the floor and a tap. A blanket has been hung around the area to form a makeshift partition. Water is routinely shut off for up to 12 hours a day.

Next to that is the kitchen, where food is stored out in the open and covered in bugs and prisoners are provided with one pot and a tiny stove heater.

There are no beds, just a mat and blanket on the floor.

The footage, filmed clandestinely and posted on The Telegraph, shows a single barred window set high in the wall as the only source of sunlight into the “underground dungeon”.

There is no heating in the cells and the open windows let in not only cold air but dirt and, when it rains, mud.

Unsanitary ... the bathroom is a hole in the ground and a single tap. Picture: The Telegraph.Source:Supplied

Alisdare Hickson spent 54 days inside Tora prison after he was arrested and accused of throwing rocks during a protest when he was taking photographs.

Hickson, from Canterbury in England, described his time there as “extremely difficult”.